Introducing Halo Fleet Battles

What I will be talking about today is something that I have been looking forward to since Salute 2015, the release of Halo Fleet Battles, from Spartan Games and 343 Industries.

So you know i’m not going into too much detail in the rules, but I will explain the basics of the game.

What I will start with is some photos and descriptions of the contents of the boxset.

Lets start with the fun part, the ships.

As you can see above you get plenty of ships in the box, although I actually have two boxset’s worth of Covenant ships.

The ships are easy to put together and come on the sprues in such a way that you barely need the instructions to put them together (although the Paris class Frigate comes in one piece).

The ships you get in the boxset are:

UNSC (32 models)

1 Epoch-class Heavy Carrier

4 Marathon-class Heavy Cruisers

27 Paris-class Frigates

Covenant (17 models)

1 ORS Class Heavy Cruiser

2 CCS Class Battlecruisers

14 SDV Heavy Corvettes

The boxset gives you more ships for the UNSC but that is mainly due to the fact that the Covenant ships have much longer range and much stronger weapons. The UNSC have the obvious numbers advantage plus they can move faster then the enemy ships.

*An example of a game setup of Halo Fleet Battles*

Next lets talk about the rulebooks. The core rulebook as shown on the right is absolutely packed full of amazing lore information, pictures from Spartan Games own collection of Halo ships (Including the beautiful Assault Carrier that should be out by the end of the year), and of course all the rules you will need to play the game. The other book has game setups and special scenarios to play the epic space battles that lead up to and decide the fate of the UNSC fortress world of Reach.

OK, so now lets talk about who will lead your fleet.

*Vice Admiral Michael Stanforth*

*Supreme Commander Rho ‘Barutamee*

The photo above shows the Commander cards that have the special rules for the character who will lead your fleets. They explain their rank, command ship names, standard rules and special rules (which are used in the game to give advantages to your fleet) plus that commander’s UNIQUE ABILITY, a special rule that the commander can use mid-game. Next to these cards are the special ORDER DICE, these are used in game to play the standard/special rules and help in deciding who has initiative.

These are the ship profile cards that come in the boxset and explain all details of the ships that you will need to play the game, ex, ships type, movement, damage track, weapon profiles and special rules. They also show the different formations you can have the ships in. You can either have a UNSC Epoch class Heavy Carrier alone, or you can have it supported by a Paris class Frigate, this give you the advantage of having more firepower and better defenses while having to pay slightly more in the army list. You also get the profiles for the squads of fighters that are launched from the larger ships, bombers and even boarding craft, some of which can contain Spartans or even Elite Zealots.

Below is an example of the ship templates, that have an easy to use profile listed on it as well as showing the different arcs of fire that the ships can use. Some weapons can fire in Fore, Port or Starboard arc, and some weapons can fire multiple arcs.

Lets talk about Tokens.

The photo above shows examples of the tokens that you will use in the game. The top line are used for Covenant interceptors, boarding craft, bombers and the Zealots that can be sent to attack enemy ships. Then we have the UNSC variants, bomber, boarding craft, two types of interceptors (which have slightly different profiles) and the spartans which can cause some serious damage if allowed to get aboard an enemy ship.

Next we have the playing dice that will be used in the game. In the boxset you get 20x special D6 and 2 x D6, (these are used to decide initiative and rolling for damage dealt against boarded ships). The special dice are 6 sided but only have 4 types of symbols, these are (2) 2 successes, (1) 1 success, Miss and FAIL! These dice can actually have differing results when shooting against other ships as there is a special rule called ‘FIREPOWER RATING’ where certain weapons or space phenomenon can effect where on the rating chart you roll giving you better or worse chances of doing damage.

Next we have the terrain templates that come in the boxset.

I think these are great! Great detail!! And some great rules. They can effect movement, shooting and even damage ships. Better be careful when moving near those planets, one misstep and all they’ll find of your ship is a massive crater.

Final part of the boxset is the Reference Sheet, giving you all the details you’ll need for easy use while playing and blowing stuff up!!!

This is obviously just a small overview of the game but if you are interested in a more detailed look how about you pop down to the club for an intro game, I’ll be running them anytime someone wants a go.

Also if you are interested in the game you can find it in the link below or from several independent stockists.

http://shop.spartangames.co.uk/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=HFBB01

Anyway, hope you enjoyed and look forward to your opinions and responses.